Snap Shot
by aprill99
Summary: These are kind of snap shot moments of MerDer written in the POV of other characters who watched the relationship develop. Some are longer ones that will be more drawn out observations and stuff like that. I'm going to do one for a lot of characters from lots of episodes. I think it could be interesting. Please just give it a shot read and review!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: If I owned Grey's Anatomy I would have had to have started writing scripts when I was in about first grade. I'm just barrowing the characters for some quality time.**

Lots of people came in and out of Joe's Emerald Bar every day. Well actually, more like every night. Technically every day and every night. More often every night though. During the day the flow of customers slowed a bit, but the doctors who worked forty-eight hour shifts across the street normally came over at the end of their second day.

This particular night was special though.

For most of the night it seemed pretty normal. Traffic was fairly light. Doctors, firemen, people from the waiting room, recent discharges, and just regular drifters by swirled in to the bar for food and alcohol. Then they either drifted back out to other tables, or perched at the bar nursing their chosen poison.

The two who walked in that night were just somehow different.

The man walked in first. He was wearing a red button up shirt and quietly asked for a double scotch single malt in a quiet voice. He managed a small smile when the drink was delivered and asked for a tab to be started under the name Shepherd.

Joe complied happily enough. Normally the only people who bothered starting tabs at his bar were ones who planned on spending a lot of time and money there. Those people were mostly the surgeons from across the street.

Joe guessed that the man in the red button up wasn't one of the low level interns who worked never ending hours either. Those ones didn't order single malt scotch. They stuck with cheap alcohol unless they were the kind of people who had been born in to a pool of money and just kept swimming through medical school. This one was one of the hot shot doctors. The ones with , PhDs, and other various alphabetical degrees swimming out of their ears. One of the guys who made two million dollars a year if work had been slow.

Shepherd took his drink and retreated in to a niche against the wall. He leaned back and arranged his limbs in loose crosses over his body, half leaning, and almost sitting on a tall bar stool. He simply stayed there, nursing a drink and watching the other bar patrons drift through the establishment like clouds in the sky. He didn't say a word, just looked on with dark blue eyes.

The next one in to the bar was the girl. Her face looked young, almost young enough that Joe would have been tempted to check her ID if it hadn't been for her clear air of confidence and comfort in her surroundings. The other thing was the black cocktail dress and strappy sandals. These were grown up clothes.

The girl's face was framed with curtains of golden blonde hair that curled slightly down her back. Her face held a tired, and slightly harassed expression, but she managed a small smile when she reached the bar. She perched on the bar stool and somehow managed to make the movement seem delicate and floppy at the same time. "Straight tequila please," she requested lightly.

Joe looked her up and down. He had had this girl pegged for the cocktail type not hard liquor. Really the girl seemed to tiny to be able to hold that kind of alcohol. She probably weighed about a hundred pounds soaking wet.

As he hesitated, the girl gave him a determined, expectant sort of look and crossed one leg over the other. It was a clear sign that she planned on staying exactly where she was until her drink of choice was delivered to her. The flinty determination on her face gave Joe the idea that this girl might be small but she was not someone to go up against on a whim.

Joe shrugged and retrieved a shot glass. He had never turned away a customer based on their drink choice before. He didn't plan on starting now. If the blonde in the black dress wanted straight tequila, the blonde in the black dress would get straight tequila.

"Straight tequila," he said, filling the shot glass and sliding it across the bar to her. "You are going to be sorry in the morning." A warning was really only fair.

The blonde gripped the glass and a small, almost guilty smile spread across her mouth. "I'm always sorry in the morning," she told him conspiratorially. "But tomorrow I start my first day of work so, keep them coming." She tossed back the shot with a practiced movement.

Joe was impressed that she didn't so much as pull a face. His faith that she could hold her alcohol confirmed, Joe pulled the glass back across the bar to refill it as she had asked. If it looked like she was going to hit the floor, he could always take her car keys and load her in to a cab before she went home.

The man in the red shirt pushed off from the wall and made his way over to the chair next to the blonde. "Double scotch single malt please," he said politely. Joe nodded and began to fill a new glass. He had remembered the drink order from before, but sometimes it made people feel more polite or correct to ask twice. However, from the look Shepherd was aiming at the blonde, this trip back to the bar hadn't exactly been about the alcohol.

"So," Shepherd said to the blonde. "Is this a good place to hang out?"

The blonde's eyebrows went up a bit. She was clearly unimpressed by the admittedly horrible pick up line. "Uh," she paused, probably wondering if it was a good move to speak to a random stranger in a bar. "I don't know. I've never been here before."

The man was undeterred. "Oh, you know what I haven't either. First time. First day in town." Joe pushed his drink to him across the bar but Shepherd was still looking at the blonde. She tossed back her shot and looked straight ahead.

"Oh so you're ignoring me?" he questioned.

Joe watched as the alcohol clearly crept in to the girl's system. She gave up and sighed. She even graced the man with a small, amused smile. "Trying to."

Clearly encouraged by the little victory, Shepherd gave the blonde a warm smile that showed dimples that rivaled those of a cherub. "You shouldn't ignore me," he advised cheerily. His tone was light, like he was just stating a basic fact.

Joe refiled the tequila and moved back a bit. He didn't go too far though. He just had a feeling that something about what was happening was worth witnessing.

"Why not?" The question was a challenge. A lightly placed steel gauntlet

Shepherd rose to meet it. "Because I'm somebody that you need to get to know to love." The smile hadn't left his face the entire time he spoke. His eyes were light and seemingly open. Corny was apparently a Shepherd specialty.

The blonde smiled a little more warmly. "You really like yourself don't you?" she asked rhetorically. Her voice was teasing.

Shepherd recognized this and shook his head, looking no less pleased with his situation than he had been before. "Just hiding my pain," the both managed to laugh, but Joe guessed that there was probably more truth to the statement than the blonde knew. "So what's your story?" he asked, taking a sip of his scotch.

"I don't have a story," she said, still sounding amused. "I'm just a girl in a bar."

"Oh?" Shepherd asked. "Then I'm just a guy in a bar."

The blonde shrugged. "If that's who you feel like being, then sure."

Shepherd lifted his glass out towards hers. "Cheers to that then." The blonde looked from the glass to his face doubtfully. "Come on," he goaded. "What have you got to loose?"

The blonde gave in and clinked her shot glass against his. She let it stay there for a moment, their fingertips brushed together. "Cheers," she said. She threw the alcohol in to her mouth and Shepherd took a swig from his own glass.

Joe smiled over at the two at the bar and moved away to fill glasses for other customers. He looped back around to them every once in a while and each time he did they seemed to be a little bit closer to each other. It was like watching two magnets slowly give in to a polar charge. Inching in and in and in and in until they finally snapped together.

With the blonde and the man in the red button up shirt, that final snap came when the two of them ended up making out like a pair of teenagers with the blonde curled on Shepherd's lap with their arms twisted around each other.

Joe moved gingerly towards them and was about to call them on PDA or possibly throw a bucket of cold water on them when the two separated for air. "So what do you say, guy-from-the-bar?" the blonde asked. "Want to be somewhere else?"

Shepherd nodded and leaned forward again, there mouths connected for another long moment and Shepherd dug a wallet out of his pocket and threw a wad of money on the counter. "Keep the change," he told Joe.

Joe watched as the tiny blonde girl towed his much larger, lankier form out of the bar and in to the rain outside. He glanced down at the bills and counted them out before putting the money in to the register. He chuckled incredulously. Shepherd must be really making it big to leave that kind of a tip. Whatever, clearly counting hadn't exactly been on the guy's mind.

Joe wasn't religious, but he did believe in fate, and karma, and positive energy. So that night when he finished locking up he sent out one last good that in to the universe.

Just a little bit of extra luck for the guy and the girl in the bar.

**A/N: So that's chapter one! I'm going to try to do a lot of these from different POVs of people who get to watch Meredith and Derek develop their relationship a bit like we did. I think it should be interesting and I'm willing to take suggestions from you guys to. Tell me what you want to see! Review for me! xoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxooxoxxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxooxxooxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

Cristina Yang tended to make her mind up about people fairly quickly. She had worked out weather or not she wanted to try to like Meredith Grey just as fast as she normally did. At the beginning she was at least bearable.

Grey at least seemed to have half a brain, and she hadn't worn annoyingly bright pastels in to the hospital, or used an over application of perky happiness like Dr. Model Izzie Stevens. Grey wasn't Bambi eyed or fumbling like O'Malley either. Plus, she had grumbled about how few women had been accepted in to the program, expressed violence over Patient Beauty Patient, and had Ellis Grey for a mother. Besides, she seemed at least a bit stubborn and gutsy.

Bearable. That was the judgment Cristina had first passed on Meredith Grey.

When they had all been gathered together in a conference room without an explanation, Cristina had found a seat perched on a side table and hadn't complained when Meredith had hopped up next to her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Suturing a banana," Cristina answered. "In the vague hope that it wakes up my brain."

Meredith had gone up another half a notch in her good books by simply nodding and leaning over to examine her stitches. In the same moment O'Malley dropped a spot by letting out a strangely high pitched chuckle. "What are you smiling at Double-O-Seven?" she snared. Then she sighed. "Sorry, I get mean when I'm tired."

"You know what?" O'Malley said, sounding deliriously happy and tired. "I don't even care. I got to comfort a family and hang out in the OR today. All is right with the world."

Cristina ignored the non-important comment and moved to what she felt was the main issue at hand. "Whatever. Does anyone know _why _we're here?"

Right on cue Dr. Shepherd walked in. "Good morning," he greeted. Cristina mumbled a reply like everyone else in the room. A tiny piece of her brain made a side note that Grey had stayed silent and ducked her head a bit.

"I'm going to do something pretty rare for a surgeon," Shepherd started. Cristina leaned forward eagerly, this was going to be good she could tell. "I'm going to ask interns for help."

At those words Cristina threw her banana and suture kit aside. Help meant maybe getting in on a maybe procedure. It was exactly what she needed to start this internship off right.

"I've got this kid Katie Bryce," Shepherd continued, naming the girl they had greeted on the helipad that morning. "She's a mystery. She doesn't respond to our meds. The labs are clean, and the scans are pure... but she's having seizures. Gran Malts seizure with no apparent cause. She's a ticking clock, and she's going to die if I don't make a diagnosis. Which is where you come in."

Every eye in the room was on Shepherd now as he leaned against the white board. Cristina blocked out everyone else and focused on the attending's words. Surgery was competitive, and she was one of the most competitive people on the planet. She thrived on it.

"I need your extra minds, extra eyes," Shepherd stressed. "I need you to play detective. I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures."

Everyone began shifting around to take notes and start working, or simply stared blankly at their schedules for the day hoping something would magically rearrange it's self. "Now I know your tired, your busy, and you've got more work than you could possible handle. I understand so I'm going to offer an incentive."

If anyone hadn't been paying attention before they sure as hell were now. "Whoever finds out what's wrong with Katie rides with me. You get to do what no interns get to do, scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure."

Dr. Shepherd seemed to throw a glance towards where Cristina and Meredith were sitting before letting his gaze pan around the room. "Dr. Bailey has Katie's chart. The clock is ticking fast people. If we're going to save Katie's life we have to do it now."

Everyone scrambled for Katie's chart, and by the time Cristina emerged with her copy Dr. Grey had vanished from the room.

Cristina hunted the skinny blonde down with determination. Grey had been the intern on Katie when she was admitted, and it was possible she had noticed something no one else had. She found her in the pit. "I want in on Shepherd's surgery," she said without preamble. "You've been the intern since Katie from the start, do you want to work together? We find the answer we have a fifty-fifty chance of scrubbing in."

The two made their way out of the Pit and down a hospital hallway in the direction of the library. "I'll work with you but I don't want in on the surgery," Grey said, surprising Cristina completely. "You can have it," Grey continued.

"Are you kidding?" Cristina asked incredulously. "It's the biggest opportunity any intern will ever get!"

"I don't want to spend anymore time with Shepherd than I have to," Meredith said with a surprising level of vehemence.

She frowned. What would make an intern hate a fairly decent, incredibly skilled seeming attending on the first day on the job. "What do you have against Shepherd?"

Meredith Grey ignored her question. "If we find the answer the surgery is yours," she stated. "Now do you want to work together or not?"

Cristina couldn't stop the grin from creeping across her face as Meredith pulled ahead of her. "Deal."  
>_<p>

An hour later the two of them were neck deep in the research library and had yet to find anything. "Well she doesn't have anoxia, chronic renal failure, or acidosis," she rattled off. "It's not a tumor because her CT is clean. Are you seriously not going to tell me why you won't work with Shepherd?" she tacked on to the end.

"No," Meredith answered automatically. "What about infection?"

"No," Cristina replied, double checking the chart to be sure. "There's no white count. She has no CT lesions, no fevers, nothing in her spinal tap. Just tell me." It probably didn't really matter, but the very fact that Grey was refusing to tell her something made Cristina want to know every detail she could get.

Meredith huffed. "You can't comment," she said, laying down rules. "Make a face or react in anyway. Cristina looked at her, making her face purposefully blank, and waited. "We had sex," Grey said plainly.

Cristina nodded, processing that information. It really didn't matter she decided. Shepherd was a hot neurosurgeon with hair that seemed to stay magically coiffed. Why not hit that if you had the opportunity? Plus, Cristina was confident enough in her surgical skills to know that it probably wouldn't matter in the end.

"What about and aneurism?" she asked, switching back to the topic at hand.

Grey shook her head, ponytail bouncing a bit. "No blood on the CT, and no headaches."

Cristina sighed. "Well there's no drug use, no pregnancy, no trauma..." she trailed off for a moment but couldn't help her next question. "So was it good? I mean he looks like he'd be good. Was it good?"

Grey stood without answering the question and re-shelved the research materials they had been pouring over. "No one has answers," she concluded. "What happens if no one finds anything?"

"You mean what if she dies?" Cristina asked, a little bit startled. She hadn't even bothered considering that it was possible that they wouldn't figure anything out. Medicine almost always had an answer to her.

"Yeah!" Meredith said worriedly, crouching down to her level.

Cristina sighed again. "Well this is going to sound bad but I really want in on that surgery."

Grey ticked up another notch in the standings when she didn't immediately start spewing some kind of sensitivity crap. "She's just never going to have the chance to turn in to a person," she said. "The sum total of her existence will be almost winning Miss Teen Whatever. Do you now what her pageant talent is?"

"They have talent?" Cristina asked dryly.

"Rhythmic gymnastics," Grey pronounced around a smile.

Cristina burst out laughing. "Oh come on!" she said, glancing back down at the chart with her pen.

"What is rhythmic gymnastics?" Grey asked, still laughing. "I can't even say it. I don't know what it is."

"Um..." Cristina wracked her brains and managed to come up with a fragment of a memory of some weird thing on TV that her mother had watched. Sparkles, a ball, ribbons, and leotards had been all she had needed to see before leaving the room. "I think it's something with a ball-" she cut herself off at the look of realization on the blonde's face. "What? Meredith what?"

She sprang to her feet and held a hand out to her. "Get up!" she commanded, a bright light in her eyes. "Get up come on!"

The blonde explained her realization as she ran through the hospital to track down Dr. Shepherd. They finally found him as he was stepping in to an elevator making notes on a medical pad. "Katie competes in beauty pageants!" Cristina gasped out.

"I know that but we have to save her life anyway," Shepherd said with a dry tone and straight face.

He wasn't paying too much attention but Cristina soldiered on. "She's had no headaches, no neck pain, the CT was clean," she stepped in front of the elevator door to keep it from closing. "There's no medical proof of an aneurism..."

"Right," Shepherd prompted. The message was clear in his tone. _Get to the point please. _

"What if she has an aneurism anyway?" she finished.

Shepherd tucked his pen in to the front pocket of his lab coat and shook his head. "There are no indicators."

"She twisted her ankle a few weeks ago when she was practicing for the pageant!" Cristina added. She stepped in front of the door again and completely ignore the slight jarring the impact sent up her spine. She said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever higher power had led Meredith to sharing that detail with her on the run over.

"Look I appreciate you trying to help-" Shepherd started leaning his head in to the newly opening gap formed by the door.

"She fell!" Meredith threw in, popping up at Cristina's shoulder. "When she twisted her ankle she fell."

Shepherd turned halfway around to give a quick apology to everyone else in the elevator who were all looking more and more irritated and confused by the minute. "It was no bug deal," Cristina went on. "Not even a bump on the head. She got right back up, iced her ankle, and everything was fine. It was a fall so minor her doctor didn't even think to mention it when I was taking her history but she _did _fall!"

"Well you know what the chance is of a fall that minor bursting an aneurism?" Shepherd called through the rapidly closing metal doors. "One in a million literally."

Cristina and Meredith exchanged a glance and had begun to walk away when the elevator dinged and the doors slid back open.

Shepherd heaved a deep breath and stepped out, walking quickly passed them. "Let's go."

"Where?" Meredith asked.

"To find out if Katie is one in a million," Shepherd called back.

They followed him.

They sat watching the scans resolve themselves in to pictures on the screens. "Well I'll be damned," Shepherd said quietly. "it's minor but it's there. A sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. She's bleeding in to her brain."

They made their way back up to the nurses station as Dr. Shepherd kept talking. "She could have gone her whole life with out it ever being a problem. Just one tap in the right spot and..."

"It exploded," Cristina filled in.

"Exactly," Shepherd said. There was a sort of gleam in his eyes as he said it. Cristina could recognize that look, it was the look that all great surgeons had when they were about to be able to do the thing they loved best. "You two did great work," he praised.

They reached the nurses station and he leaned over. "I'd love to stay here and kiss your asses but I have to go tell Katie's parents that she's headed in to surgery. Katie Bryce's chart please." The nurse handed it over and he began to flip through it intently.

"Uh, Dr. Shepherd?" Cristina piped in. She hadn't spent over an hour in the library researching for nothing. "You said that you would pick someone to scrub in with you if we helped."

"Oh, yes right," he remembered. "Um, I'm sorry I can't take you both but it's going to be a full house. His eyes flicked past her and settled on Meredith happily. "Meredith I'll see you in the OR."

Meredith gaped at him, then at her. Cristina was half in agreement with her. Grey had given almost no sign that she had done anything at all to contribute to the discovery. She had set Cristina up for the opportunity and then silently stepped back.

A certain part of her knew that, but the other, more competitive part of her saw it as blatant favoritism. That part of her was jealous, indignant, and just all together royally pissed off. It was that part of her that led her to storm away, ignoring Meredith calling her name.

It was also that part of her that led her to be a royal bitch to Grey later, venting everything in her system that could be said in front of Izzie. For reasons she didn't quite understand herself, she left out Shepherd and Grey sleeping together. For some reason, bringing that up just felt like a dirty, undeserved, violation of privacy.

Meredith took it all in silence, and then turned away.

Cristina didn't know why she went up to the OR gallery to watch the procedure. But she did it.

She watched as Shepherd used his head to gesture Grey to come over to watch him repair the aneurism through the microscope. She could see as Shepherd's hands moved with light sure movements to manipulate his instruments.

Strangely, it almost seemed like he worked even more smoothly and quickly when Meredith came closer. _Showing off to impress the girl. _

The thought drew Cristina up short. Blatant favoritism for the intern you screwed was one thing, wanting to do better work to save a teenager's life to impress them was different. The attendings were supposed to be pushing the interns, not the other way around.

For some reason, those thoughts and realizations made it incredibly hard for Cristina to dislike Meredith Grey. When she passed the Doctor in question out side of the OR she stopped. "It was a good surgery," she acknowledged.

"Yeah," Meredith agreed with a tired smile.

Cristina let out a breath and sagged in to the chair next to her. According to the clock on the wall, their first forty-eight hour shift was now officially over. Slowly she said, "we don't have to do that thing where I say something, and then you say something, and then somebody cries, and there's like a moment..."

"Yuck," Meredith interjected tonelessly.

"Good," Cristina said fervently. She glanced at Meredith. "You should get some sleep, you look like crap."

Meredith met her gaze with a teasing expression. "I look better than you."

"Not possible," Cristina stated lightly. She pulled herself up from her seat and moved away down the hall towards the scrub room. She paused and looked back around the corner as the OR door opened again.

Dr. Shepherd was learning against the nurses station with his eyes on Meredith. They were talking quietly, like the hospital around them had been put on pause for a second. From her position, Cristina could just see Meredith smile, and hear Shepherd's parting words.

"I should uh, go do this." He didn't sound so completely convinced that that was what he wanted to do.

Cristina smiled tiredly and walked off down the hall. She had survived her first shift, and from what she could tell, Meredith Grey just might have become her knew best friend.

Who really gave a crap if she was all lovey dovey with Dr. McDreamy anyway?

**A/N: So how did I do? I thought it was only right to give Meredith's person one of the first chapters. She's been able to watch MerDer right from the beginning. Sorry about any bad grammar. It is something I'm working on. I'll try to update often but I am in school right now so it might take a little bit of time between some chapters. Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: If I could buy Grey's Anatomy I would. But I can't, so I don't own it.**

When Richard Webber first sets eyes on an adult Meredith Grey, it's a bit like seeing a ghost. He's just ramming Alex Karev for not knowing the causes of pot operation fever when her voice breaks in. It's light like wind chimes but a bit rougher like sandpaper. All in all it's entirely too familiar.

Richard turns to her and asks for the correct way to run a diagnosis. She lists of the steps, the words flying from the same thin mouth in a familiar face while tired grey-blue eyes fix on his face with bright determination. She's every bit her mother's daughter and Richard tells her so. "Welcome to the game."

He doesn't mean to really, and he tries not to, but he watches Meredith. He goes through his normal day, operates, manages paper work, and runs the surgical floor, but out of the corner of his eyes he watches the way she works.

She's gifted, that's what he concludes. She shows all of the same skill her mother did as an intern, maybe more. Not that he'd ever tell Ellis that if she was around. According to Meredith she's off traveling and writing her next book. Surely it'll be the next revered text in the medical world once it's published. He bought the last one and he knows he'll buy the next one. Even if he has to hide it from his wife to avoid Adele's accusing look.

The day she has to carry around a penis in a cooler to give to a police man as part of evidence in a rape case, he can't help but laugh a bit. After all, he changed Meredith's diapers as a baby when her mother was too busy. She handles it well though, with exactly the level of exasperation and irritation he would expect.

When there's a chance that he might have to throw her out of the program he knows he's probably too involved. He knows it because if he has to throw her out, he's not sure he'll be able to. It's like a brick is lifted off his chest when Dr. Burke steps up to the plate and proves that mistakes happen. It also proves that Burke may be arrogant and a bit less caring than he should be, but he's shrewd, and thoughtful enough to at least handle the more political side of being Chief. Shepherd is still his probably preferred choice.

That's why he asks Shepherd to run tests when his vision starts to go. He trusts his old mentee to operate on his brain and get the tumor out when it's discovered there. He trusts Dr. Miranda Bailey to watch over everything like a hawk and take the secret to her grave. Then he trusts Meredith Grey to assist in the procedure. Because if an intern has to be present at his brain surgery, he wants Ellis Grey's daughter. He wants the intern to be her little girl.

When he opens his eyes again, the first thing that occurs to him is that his brain is registering images. He can see. Shepherd pulled it off. But then again maybe he didn't because the image forming doesn't make any sense.

The face he sees through the window in the door to his recovery room is Meredith's. Her eyes are a bit watery, her shoulders are slightly hunched, and her face is tired. Tired and being framed by a brown, male, hand. A hand with long thin surgeons fingers that lead down to a wrist wearing a familiar old watch. The watch is a watch with a story behind it that Richard has been told before.

The arm leads up to indigo scrubs and thin shoulder blades. Then up to a head of thick black hair. Every sign points to the man holding Meredith's face in his hand being Dr. Derek Christopher Shepherd.

Derek's tall frame is inclined towards Meredith. His thumb is brushing gently against her cheek and Meredith is leaning in to his touch, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment before opening again.

Even before Derek leans down and presses a lingering kiss to Meredith's forehead the gesture is too close. Too intimate. It's the kind of touch that speaks of whispered words in the dark, gentle touches, secret smiles, and quiet laughing. It's the kind of gesture that speaks of falling down a rabbit hole when the bottom might not come, and if it does it might cause shattering on impact.

"He's an attending," Richard warms her when she comes in to check on him. He delivers the warning because he's lived this story, and he knows how it can end. He warns her because no matter how old Meredith gets, she's still Ellis's little girl.

"You saw us?" she asks momentarily distracted, then her surgical instincts kick in. "You can see." The words are triumphant and pleased as she leans over him and begins to check his pupillary responses.

Meredith's response when he warns her again further confirms his fears that this relationship between Grey and Shepherd has already gone a little too far. It's not scratching an itch, it's already become an investment. From the carefulness of the way Derek was touching her face, the feelings aren't one sided.

He's going to have to do something. This can't continue for her sake. He's going to have to do something before it goes too far because if he doesn't Meredith is going to be more hurt than if this goes on. He can't let Ellis's little girl get hurt. That's how he justifies calling Addison Montgomery-Shepherd for a consult.

It's for the best. That's what he tells himself when Addi gets to town and Shepherd goes from bright and chatty to cold and terse over night. He continues to tell it to himself as Derek slowly begins to defrost and relents enough to give things with Addison a chance. It becomes his mantra when Meredith comes in over the next month or so looking more tired, and more stressed than is normal for an intern with red eyes.

She looks like she's been crying and Richard wants nothing more than to give her a hug, make her an ice cream sundae, hold her until she stops crying, and promise things are going to be alright. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce always seemed to fix everything when she was five. But he can't do that because she should be just another intern to him being Chief of Surgery. He can't truly treat her differently because she's Ellis's little girl.

He still looks out for her more than he should. He still does everything he can to maintain status quo. When their is a bomb scare in the hospital and Meredith and Derek are two of the only ones left he purposefully sends Derek towards Addie when he gets to the main floor. Richard knows what he's doing isn't subtle when Adele looks at him with accusing eyes. "That is not the she to whom he was referring."

He knows Derek can tell to and the look of knowing isn't even the worst thing about the expression on his former student's face as he stares over his wife's shoulder. The worst thing isn't the worry or the sadness either. The worst part is the desperately conflicted combination of exhaustion, longing, and the acceptance that the person he wants to be holding in that moment isn't his wife. He wants, desperately wants to be holding a girl who is probably still standing in an OR somewhere with her hand on a bomb

Richard can't be angry at Derek just then. In that moment with a million other things to worry about, they are both thinking of the same girl.

That still doesn't stop the relief he feels when Meredith seems to move on.

Richard hears through the grapevine that she's dating a vet and the relief that surges through him is something he can't control. A vet he can greet, stare down a little too intensely, and shake hands a little too tightly with, and it could still on a level be dismissed as a boss looking out for a promising employee, or an old family friend keeping a watchful eye.

The vet seems to be a nice enough guy named Finn Dandridge. He shows up at the hospital once or twice and brings Meredith lunch. Richard feels glad that at least someone is looking after her, making sure she sleeps enough, and eats something other than cold take out. Other people have families or friends with normal lives for that. It's something Meredith needs.

The prom he throws for his niece with cancer is the first time he gets to hold an honest conversation with Finn. He contemplates having a threatening talk similar to the one he had with his niece's boyfriend, but he has to slip away to take care of something before he can get the words out. When he comes back Meredith is dancing with him and he knows that the conversation is pointless.

It's pointless because Derek is dancing with Addison and Meredith is dancing with Finn. There is an entire room spotted with dancing people between them and their eyes are locked together like the distance between them is less than inches. The looks aren't fleeting, or light, or innocent, or anything that at all resembles something that can be ignored. The looks are warm, deep, and inescapable.

The two of them communicate that way more frequently than should be possible. Derek looks to Meredith in the OR with simple messages. _L__ift the clamp. Get closer, you can see better over here. Go. Stay. Are you okay? _The way Meredith looks back at him makes up the other half of the conversation. _Is this good? Okay. Not okay. _There's just one thing that they both say, and Richard knows it's one thing that they won't say out loud.

So he turns away and dances with his niece.

There's only so much intervention you can do before it becomes impossible to believe you're doing any good. So he steps back. Richard tries to just watch. He watches as almost every member of his hospital seems to become more and more interconnected with every other one.

His watching comes to an abrupt end when Meredith is drowning and hypothermic and probably going to die. Derek is the one who comes in with her, and his chest compressions in the ambulance were probably the things that have kept him alive. Shepherd's neurosurgical instincts try taking over even when he's panicking and scared out of his mind.

Still, Richard needs him out of the room. No matter how helpful expertise on the human brain are on victims of hypothermic death, you can never have family in the room with the patient while in surgery. Of course by that logic Richard shouldn't be in the room either, but their is absolutely no way in hell he's leaving or giving up.

Meredith does eventually come around. Her vitals finally hold and Cristina Yang manages to get her to speak. When Richard goes to check on her later when most of the ferry crash victims have been at least sorted out a little bit, she's curled up on her side with blonde hair falling over her face the same way she did when she was five. Still a little girl.

She's not that anymore though, no matter how small she might look tucked in to the hospital bed with the wires and machines attached.

The proof of that is especially clear in the form of Derek Shepherd lying with her on the bed. His eyes are screwed shut, his legs sandwich around hers while one arm tucks under her head and the other is wrapped around her stomach. Their fingers are knit together and Richard realizes something. Meredith might have been the one who was in danger of death but Derek was equally as drowned.

He steps back again and keeps on watching. Watching Ellis's little girl is something he does well. He watches through being pushed away by Meredith and Derek both at alternate times, but he lets it happen anyway.

He helps Derek set up his third and ultimately successful proposal to Meredith. He guards the elevator and even goes so far as to play traffic director and funnel Meredith in to the right one. Apparently their are some stories about kisses and silent moments in that elevator. There's probably more to that story, but Richard senses he might not be able to ride that elevator again if he knows all the details.

The proposal is successful and Richard doesn't even feel the slightest bit of guilt for Meredith's annoyance when he clears her schedule and leaves her to the dress up doll inclined, wedding obsessed whims of a cancer riddled Izzie Stephens. He doesn't actually know if he'll get to see the wedding despite Stephens' promise tat she will figure out a way to manipulate him in to the ceremony. That's why he clears a few minutes of time to go by the room turned bridal boutique.

What he sees through the window of the room makes his heartache in a way that's fresh and all it's own. Its not a shattered feeling, it's more like having a cardio specialist crack in to his chest and stretch and twist his heart in to an impossible shape before closing up.

Meredith is standing there, blonde hair tumbling messily around her face with a white veil thrown over the top of her head. The dress moves down her body and then flairs out with some kind of fancy beadwork pattern he can't distinguish. Chipped purple polish is just visible as the tips of her toes peek out from the hem of the skirt.

She's smiling. The smile she had first smiled at him when she was a tiny baby who barely had the teeth to pull it off. It's wide and curls a bit higher at one edge than the other. This smile is a smile that warms her face and makes her green-grey eyes sparkle and shine. She seems to almost glow with nearly incredulous happiness. Ellis's little girl is grown up.

He wants to be there at the wedding. He wants to walk Meredith down the aisle. Not just for Meredith, or for Derek, or for Ellis either. He wants to be there for himself. Richard Webber has grown to care for Meredith Grey in a category all her own.

Because Meredith isn't just the little girl who he always saw as Ellis's daughter. She's not just _her _little girl.

She's his little girl to.

**A/N: How did I do? I wanted to try something that covered a bit more time for this one. I like this style and I might keep it up if you guys like it to. Next up is going to be Alex I think. I felt like this was a good place to end it with Richard but I can always add on with other chapters. Review for me! xoxoxxxxxxxxxxxxxoxoxoxooooooooooooooooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxxooxxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxo**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Very much not mine**

From the moment Aaron Karev enters the world, Alex is a big brother. His mother passes him the blanket wrapped bundle and a pinched little baby face peers up at him. The bundle squirms and begins to cry and Alex quickly hands it back to his mother. Babies, he decides, are not his thing.

Alex can't do the midnight crying, but when Aaron gets a little older, Alex does the best he can to be a good big brother. He makes sure that there's food when their mom is dead behind the eyes and won't come out of her room. As he continues to get older and get bigger he takes the hits from his dad for the both of them.

When he joins the wrestling team and bulks up he finally rams his fathers face through a wall.

With Aaron that's the kind of thing being a big brother means to him. It means interfering in fights, making sure food is being eaten, and making sure that school is as safe as possible. He's hands off with most of Aaron's homework but he makes sure the kid can at least drive. It's before he's technically legal, but it's when Alex has the time.

Not long after that he's a big brother again when Taylor shows up.

This time he's fifteen and he knows how the drill works. He helps with changing and making formula, and he's the one who's making most of the money to make sure they can afford a babysitter. He has to because his mom is farther gone than ever.

At least Aaron is twelve now, and starting to be able to take care of himself. Thanks to a favor from the high school football coach who thinks Alex is a good kid, Aaron is playing little league football, and they receive clothing donations that the coaches kids have out grown. His wrestling coaches' wife even digs out a pile of old baby clothes for Taylor.

Being Taylor's big brother means something different from being Aaron's. Being Taylor's big brother means occasionally playing tea party, and working out the cheapest possible way to procure a Barbie doll. He learns to survive on minimal sleep and read fairy tales. Taylor cares about school when she starts going so Alex tries to teach her to read.

He learns how to braid hair and put on band aides. In general, he gets good at patching things up. He cleans and covers cuts, he administers advil and Tylenol and cold meds, he checks for fevers and buys cough drops. With a little help from sports coaches and the school nurse he figures out what meds you can take combined with what over how long a period of time, and he figures out the best way to deal with sprains, fractures, and bruises.

Alex starts figuring out that medicine has an answer for almost every problem with a body. Even the pills his mother takes seem to help. Now at least she can work sometimes, and he isn't the only one making dinner at night. The cost of the pills serves another purpose too, it tells him that being a doctor pays well.

The fact that medicine and science stick in his head combined with the fact that dissections just don't bother him at the level they probably should makes him think that med school is going to have to come after college. It'll be expensive, but the grades he manages to pull combined with his test scores get him in to state school without too much debt.

He still lives at home and he still takes care of absolutely everything he can because Aaron is still a kid and Taylor is six. She's still wrapped in pink and sometimes runs around with fairy wings. Aaron isn't so in to school, but at least the kid is making money at the auto shop in town. Alex worries about all of it because the way he sees it that's his job. He's the big brother and he's got to do everything he can.

Alex gets through medical school and through a shit load of luck he qualifies for one of the countries' best internship programs. It's in Seattle, but it pays. The money isn't great but the promise is. Besides, the money will still be more than he would make anywhere else. It's money he can send home to keep things running. That's what they need more than anything to keep the meds coming for Mom and keep everything else running.

So he goes. He scoops Taylor up and spins her around to make her laugh so she's not so sad about his leaving. She's getting to be too big for that but Alex does it anyway because she used to ask him to, and doing what your little sister wants is part of being a big brother. His mom is in a fog so he skips her and goes to Aaron. He looks at him seriously for a moment and says, _take care of her. Your her big brother to. _

Then he walks out with all of his things fitting inside a duffle bag.

When he gets to Seattle he ends up being a big brother again. It's not biological and it's not immediate, but it does end up happening.

The first time he meets Meredith Grey he insults her and she gets her own back by thoroughly slamming him in front of the Chief. It's almost artful in execution because she jumps in right when Dr. Webber has opened the floor to other opinions when his isn't panning out. She literally slams him in to a wall further on in time when he's on her last nerve. Alex could push her off, but he just sticks with being an asshole verbally. Having a little sister makes you not so keen on punching out little blonde girls.

Dr. Derek Shepherd sums it up fairly well after he breaks in and pulls her away from him. Shepherd tells him to go before he lets Meredith beet him to a pulp with her tiny ineffectual fists. The fact that the Neurosurgeon uses Grey's first name pops a red signal in his head but he ignores it. He's already got problems from trying to pay off student loans and send money back home.

The next red flag pops when he's sitting next to Meredith in the OR gallery watching Shepherd operate. He asks her for a drink with a crap line that she calls him on with a bemused smile. He tells her to be honest with him when she says she doesn't want to go out with him and she shrugs. "Oh, okay. I don't want to go out with you. But I think I actually might be seeing someone."

Alex likes that she's honest when he confirms for her that it's not going to hurt his feelings or any crap like that. The fact that she looks down at Shepherd and smiles a little at his scrub cap covered in what looks like ferry boats doesn't escape his notice. He lets it go and does Meredith a little favor by telling O'Malley she's taken.

Alex doesn't really care when he finds out that Meredith and Shepherd were together. He doesn't even particularly care much when Shepherd's wife shows up. He even says so when Meredith asks him in the scrub room while she firmly shouts Shepherd down. He doesn't care because both of them are good doctors, and he's already had it irreversibly proved to him that people are pretty much a sum total of screw ups and bad choices.

At least, he's a mess of screw ups and bad choices. Meredith has never judged him for his so he resolves not to judge her for hers. The one thing he does do is tell her to stop saying she's fine. _You've said that word so many times it doesn't even sound like a word anymore. _He tells her because while he's screwed, Alex admits it to all the world and delivers plenty of warnings through being a jackass. Meredith is not fine, the least he can do for her is tell her that she doesn't have to be.

One day Meredith comes in a little late, telling Cristina that she had to take a cab because her car got a flat tire and she didn't have time to change it. Using the time he has after his shift ends, Alex goes to the house he's stopped by a couple times to see Izzie and opens the garage. He checks out the flattened tire, goes to the store and comes back with a new one. Alex jacks up the car, changes the tire, and checks the others before he leaves. He stores the key back under the eve and goes back to his place.

Alex tries not to think about why he did it, but ends up concluding that he was doing a favor for his friends. O'Malley, Cristina, Izzie, and Meredith all depended on that car on different levels to get them to work. A piece of him realizes that he's getting protective over Grey in a way that makes him think about Taylor. Two tiny blondes with bony fists.

He shuts the thoughts down quickly. He's already having trouble dealing with being a big brother to the people he doesn't have a choice over being a big brother to. Alex Karev does not need another little sister.

The pit of worry that opens up in his stomach while Grey has her hand on a bomb tells him that he might not have much of a choice about her either. As time goes on, he lets himself look out for her. She looks out for him to. Meredith is a drinking buddy who takes tequila like water and waits until he feels like venting his problems without forcing him in to it. He does the same for her a few times and the dynamic works because it's completely non judgy.

Meredith doesn't really expect much of anything from him, and he doesn't expect much from her. At the same time though, they are both undeniably there when it counts. They each ask if they need anything and both of them say no. She takes up knitting and Alex sits with her and eats Doritos.

Cristina has crept in on him to, but Alex doesn't worry about her so much. People should be afraid of Yang not the other way around. Meredith though, she's tough on an incredible level but she's still a tiny girl with even tinier fists. So he looks after her.

She helps him with Izzie, because Alex is actually trying to work out exactly how he can make that relationship work. Alex keeps out of it when the vet and the random string of guys comes along after Shepherd. He's also entirely too ready to beat up a guy who's technically his boss. Two guys actually if you count Burke, which Alex thinks he might have to. After all, if Yang asked him to he would to it.

He and Meredith have a lot in common. They're both a little twisted on the inside, and they both put up an outside layer for the sole purpose of keeping people from bothering them. On reflection, Alex thinks it's probably good that she never went out with him for that drink because the two of them are self destructive anyway and their luck is crappy enough when it comes to romantic relationships when the other person involved wants everything to go well.

In another life, maybe one where her mother gave a crap or one where his dad had never done drugs they would have worked out. In a life where at least one of them was bright and shiny having a romantic life together might have been a good idea. They are both pulled towards people who at least try to be lighter. It's why he tries with Izzie and Lexie, and it's why she's still stuck on Doctor McDreamy. As it is, it's probably good they're both screwed up. Misery loves company after all.

He offers to beat up Derek when Mere is freaking out about having kids because it seems like the appropriate response. He hasn't been home since Taylor was ten so he's not completely sure about appropriate protocol, but threats of bodily harm if Shepherd hurts her seem like they're probably appropriate. The nod that Derek gives him a few of the times that Alex fixes him with a glare for a warning makes him think that Shepherd already knows that the promise is there and hanging. In a way, Alex thinks Derek might appreciate that Meredith has extra people looking out for her.

Besides, if Alex is being a big brother to Meredith then Derek is definitely being a big brother to Lexie. Dr. Sloan, as weird as it is, kind of brother's Torres and Meredith is a sister to Yang and Lexie. Owen ends up in the mix to, and all together they're a weird kind of family. Without realizing it, Alex is a big brother again. More than that though, he's a big brother, and a little brother and a friend. This family knows what he expects, and he knows what they expect, and all together it's a role he doesn't have to think about to fill.

So, Alex doesn't interfere with Meredith and Dr. Shepherd. He watches from a little ways a way. He's ready to act if he has to but he knows that Meredith knows that he's there if she needs him. Yang is there to, and really she might get to Shepherd before he does if anything goes wrong. Owen would probably tell her the perfect way to get rid of the body to.

He watches through Shepherd's wife, Finn the veterinarian, the famous Alzheimer's mother, and the thing with O'Malley. Alex still watches through bombs and shootings and clinical trials. Through plane crashes, and multiple weddings and split ups among their friends, and a brief period of sex and mockery that Alex definitely wishes he didn't know existed.

As a big brother, Alex feels like he approves of Shepherd. It's a little backwards that he feels like he has any rights at passing approval on his boss, but those kind of boundaries pretty much vanished around the same time that the hospital's HR department officially gave up on trying to keep doctors from dating each other.

Derek Shepherd holds a good place in his mind. The placement improves drastically when Shepherd operates twice on Izzie's brain and gets her through it both times. He does it pro bono and Alex knows he did it as a favor or the two of them as much as it's a favor for Meredith. Shepherd hands over his credit card and lets Izzie plan her dream wedding because it makes her happy, and Alex has a feeling it's his idea when Meredith shows up on her wedding day and tells him it's his instead.

Shepherd lets him help build the deck for the house he planned with Meredith, and the very fact that that deck exists is another reason for brotherly approval. Building a house on a huge piece of land with one of the best views in Seattle for a girl speaks of being so stupidly and unchangeably in love that it's hard not to approve. Meredith is still dark and twisty on the inside but Shepherd is her optimism and so Alex just settles back and watches.

He helps the two of them adopt Zola, and he does it without hesitation. Shepherd is a big brother biologically four times over and treats every single kid he operates on him with a level of care and gentleness that tells Alex he's definitely going to be a good dad. Meredith for all her freaking out will be a good mom to so he tells her so. She'll be a good mom because she's already worried about weather or not she will be a good mom which is farther than either one of their mothers ever got with them.

He knows he was right when he sees the two of them with Zola. Being around kids and knowing which parents really care is something he gets used to working in Pediatrics. Changing over to peds is bizarrely easy for him, and Arizona tells him it's because he cares. Privately, Alex thinks he's just used to taking care of people.

Meredith and Derek are biological parents after the plane crash when everyone is starting to recover. Derek Bailey Shepherd enters the world through a cesarean section done in the dark in the middle of a huge storm and a power outage. Of course it's at the one point when Alex can't be there to do the procedure. He wasn't planning on going to watch Meredith give birth naturally but a C-Section he definitely would have rather showed up to help with than know some intern is doing it in the dark.

There are complications, which are almost expected because it's Meredith so of course it's not going to go according to plan. Bailey takes care of the splenic bleeding and Alex checks in to watch over little Bailey only to find that Derek hasn't stopped holding him. Derek looks up at him when Alex checks the baby and just says _she told me not to leave him. _Alex nods and tells him that Bailey is doing fine.

It's all he can do just then.

Derek and Meredith. The two of them have gone through every different level of emotional crap known to man and then discovered a few new ones and they're still together. It's kind of hopeful and Alex is hoping that maybe he and Joe can make something work that lasts a little like that.

He's still going to have to keep an eye on this whole job in D.C. thing. Alex doesn't know exactly how it's going to play out, but he does know what he'll do if he finds that Derek has gone to D.C. and Meredith is sitting on the couch with some crappy movie and a carton of ice cream.

First, Alex will swap out the ice cream for a bottle of tequila and change the crappy rom com to something where people are a bit more screwed up and violent. Then he'll sit with Meredith until she's done venting angrily. Then he'll wait until she's asleep to go and fire up his computer.

Shepherd may be fairly high up in his good books but if he's upset Mere then Alex won't hesitate to buy whatever cheep plane ticket he can find to get him to D.C. If Meredith asks him to, then there will be no miracle case/immune deficient/cancerous/diseased/other wise broken kid that will keep him from going to D.C. and kicking McDreamy's ass from the White House all the way back to the Space Needle.

That's the kind of thing big brothers do.

Alex Karev is an asshole to most people. He's impatient and he's screwed up. But he's also become a damn good doctor since starting this program.

He's also become a big brother again. Not as suddenly as it happened the first time but just as irreversibly.

Alex Karev is Meredith Grey's big brother for as long as she needs one, and he gets the feeling that that might mean forever.

**A/N: So how was it? I hope I got Alex's personality and history right. I've always liked the sibling relationship between Meredith and Alex and I hope I captured it well. Besides, you hardly ever see Derek interact with Alex so I thought it might be interesting. Review for me!xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxooxxo**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Nope. I'm not the owner or creator of Grey's Anatomy.**

When surgeons operate they follow strict procedure designed to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. There is a very specific outline for problem solving. Gather the symptoms, make a diagnosis, and then cut away the problem. Normally you try to save what you can, but sometimes the surrounding tissue is so damaged all you can do is trash the whole.

Surgeons, particularly the high level ones, tended to bring that method of problem solving home with them.

Addison later reflected that the other thing was silence. Derek had always said he had specialized in Neurosurgery for the silence. Addison hadn't minded so much, because Derek also tended to occasionally be very chatty and it was during the chatty periods that she actually found out everything going on with him.

Still, it probably shouldn't have surprised her that what Derek did when she found out she was having an affair with Mark was walk away in silence. It was his safe mode. Derek Shepherd problem solved in silence.

"Derek, Derek listen to me," she begged in a choked voice. He ignored her and continued to pull her clothes out of the closet and heap them on the bed. "Derek we have to talk about this."

"No. We. Don't," he said in a clipped, definitive voice.

He gathered her clothes in to his arms and started to make his way down the hall. He was covering ground at a remarkable speed as Addison began to sob. She begged him to let her explain. "It was one time!" she cried. "It happened! It just happened and he was here! He was just here!"

Derek hit the main floor and looked at her incredulously. "Really! You screw my best friend and that's all you can say? _He was just here?" _His words were cold and mocking. He opened the door and launched her clothing out in to the rain soaked street as yet more raindrops continued to hammer down. He gestured out of the still open door. "Get out."

"No," she shook her head.

"Get. Out."

Addison shook her head more vehemently and moved down the last few stairs. "No! No I'm not going!"

"Get out of my house! Right Now!" Derek's voice was picking up in volume. Before it had merely been cold but now it was also burning, injected with the anger of years of fights they had never had.

"No," Addison sank down on the bottom step and gripped the banister for dear life. "No! I'm holding my ground!" Derek moved towards her and gripped her by the elbows as he began trying to forcibly move her. "We don't quit!" Addison insisted desperately. She tried to stay put but Derek had always been a lot stronger than his long frame would suggest. He hauled her off the ground and bundled her out the door before the door slammed in her face.

"No!" she sobbed, breaking down as raindrops soaked her hair. "Please please please please please..." she stuttered out. Pl-ple-please. Derek..." A moment later the door reopened and Addison threw herself through it. "I'm sorry," she repeated over and over again, crying in to his jacket as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "You have to give me a chance," she begged. "You have to give me a chance to show you how sorry I am."

Looking back on it, she should have known she wouldn't get it. Derek Shepherd was a very intelligent man who understood that the world was extremely complex and still viewed it in polarized ends of a spectrum. Right and wrong. Black and White. What she had done was definitely in the black.

Derek turned them both so that his back was to the door and detached from her, pushing her out to an arms length away. He turned to shut the door and dragged in a deep, tired breath. He ran a hand through his thick dark hair and when he looked up at her Addison recognized the look of a man exhausted. "I'm going to go you stay. I'll pick up my clothes in the morning."

The words glitched in her brain. _He can't leave me. _She thought desperately. _He can't. _"No, no, no, we can survive this she said. "We're- we're Addison and Derek."

"I can't look at you," he murmured. "I look at you and I feel nauseous." _Symptoms. _He paused a moment and tried to find words. "We're not Derek and Addison anymore." _Diagnosis. _

"If you go now," Addison said in a shaky voice. "If you go now, we're not going to get through this." He turned away from her, looking absolutely anywhere else. "If you go now, we don't stand a chance," an edge of hysteria had crept in to her voice. "We don't have a chance! If you go now."

With one decisive jerk, Derek opened the door, walked out, and slammed the door behind him. _Cut away the damaged portion_

* * *

><p>When Addison sees Derek next he's smiling. It's the kind of smile that touches his eyes, making the blue sparkle and shine. The smile Derek is using is the smile that makes the world feel warmer on a freezing day and just then it's twisting a knife in to her heart. Because it's not directed at her.<p>

He's smiling at a girl in a purple sweater with long hair curling loosely down her back in a shade of blonde that can only be natural. As she watches, Derek reaches out and lifts that hair out of the edge of her color and pulls it gently back around her shoulders. He adjust the neck of her jacket and helps fasten it up her front.

The girl is smiling up at him. She's not exactly short but her head is still at least half a foot lower than Derek's. Petite is around how Addison would describe the girl. Petite and young. The anti-her.

Derek reaches down and picks up his bag. He levels another full power smile at the girl and as he straightens up his hand falls gently to the small of her back. He turns and catches sight of Addison, and the smile drops off of his face more quickly than a penny from the top of the Empire State Building.

It hurts her a bit, and so does the speed with which he turns back to the girl. He's talking quickly and Addison knows that now is the time to strike while the iron is hot. She walks across the entrance hall of the hospital like she owns it, and gives the girl a few minutes to be confused before she goes for the kill. "You must be the women whose sleeping with my husband."

The smart generals say know thy enemy so Addison requests Doctor Meredith Grey as her personal intern and Richard does it without comment. Addison suspects that while the older man doesn't like that she committed adultery, he dislikes Grey's relationship with Derek more for the time being. Unfortunately for Addison, Meredith Grey proves annoyingly difficult to hate.

From gossip around the hospital she works out that half of the interns actually live with her and the other half of them are her drinking buddies. O'Malley won't meet her eyes when they speak and Doctor Stevens speaks to her with a level of professional detachment the blonde can't ever seem to pull off with her patients. Karev treats her with the same level of uncaring hostility he uses on everyone but Addison can tell from the way he keeps an eye on Meredith that all the intern has to do is ask and Karev will make her time at the hospital hell on earth. Yang she's pretty sure has already calculated the strength needed to roll her body in to a trash bag and drag it across the floor.

The nurses and lower level workers of the surgical floor respect that Grey has a medical gift and they talk about her mostly like she's a good person. Addison also hears mention of some kind of mega party that was thrown at Meredith's house the year before.

Webber looks at Meredith like a dad and while Miranda Bailey treats Addison as a friend she also protects Grey like a Mama Bear. Preston Burke who is known for being sort tempered is actually friendly with the girl, and when he brings coffee for Cristina he brings it for her to. Even Mark when he comes to Seattle likes Meredith Grey. He calls her his favorite dirty mistress, and is the only intern Addison has ever met that Mark actually respects in terms f medical knowledge.

People like Meredith Grey and Addison can see why. She listens to problems and provides advice without judging. If she's in your corner she stays there and in a fight she's vicious as a demon from hell when she needs to be. Fighting for patients is something Grey does automatically and they trust her enough to tell her what's wrong which is good for people like Addison who are technically her superiors. And she is an exceptional surgeon.

Patients tell her what's wrong and when it's cutting time Grey stays calm and moves precisely. She operates exactly the way she needs to. Meredith Grey follows clinical procedure, and if that's not a sign that she'll be one of the greats than nothing is.

Addison is stubborn but she's also observant and watching her husband is something she feels is her prerogative. She doesn't know what Meredith and Derek looked like before she showed up, but there is plenty for her to see now. The two of them alternate between watching each other and very pointedly looking at anything else. Meredith calls him Dr. Shepherd and he looks like she's slapped him.

And that's just at first.

After Addison has been in Seattle a while, the two of them apparently decide to be friends. All three of them are trying to be friends. It's strange and awkward and It makes Addison feel like she's on uneven ground. Like she's wearing one high heal and one ballet flat. The development falls somewhere between a win and a loss and it's incredibly confusing.

They make it to Christmas and that's always been Addison's favorite holiday to have with Derek. Christmas means happy memories of egg nogg and decorating with all four of Derek's sisters. It means sappy "I love yous" and failed attempts at cooking. Christmas is a million memories and this year shouldn't be any different. It is.

It's different because when Derek says his I love you he's telling her he loves someone else. He doesn't put it in the past tense. Addison runs in to them both as Meredith gets off the elevator. They're both finally smiling and Derek looks happy. When Addison steps in to the elevator past Meredith the smile slides away and Derek rubs his head like he has a headache.

He knows what's wrong and why she's been uptight. They don't talk about it until they have to and she finally asks what she's supposed to do. Derek says to wait for it to pass so that's what she does.

Except it isn't passing. Because when Derek gets too tired to fight it off his eyes land on Meredith and then don't leave. On bad days the two of them seem to gravitate towards each other before they realize what's happening and break away. Once when Meredith has been awake and in the hospital for a time period Addison is fairly sure coincides with almost seventy-two hours and won't leave because she's trying to work a case, Derek is the one who finally gets her to go home. Nobody else sees but Addison when he walks up to Meredith, brushes a thumb over her hair line, and simply tells her to go sleep. Grey leaves with O'Malley right after that.

When Meredith's mother is admitted to the hospital the radio silence is defining until she's discharged.

Whatever it is is not passing. Derek even says so once. On the day when there is a bomb in the hospital he watches Meredith go in to surgery and says he's waiting for it to pass. The day of the bomb is the day they don't die. It's also the day that Addison knows that when Derek is returning her relieved hug that he's safe, he's still tense because no one has seen Meredith yet. He's looking everywhere, and that includes over her shoulder.

Addison feels ridiculously like the other women given the fact that she and Derek are the ones married. She's the other women because Derek does things like go into a blind rage when he finds out Meredith and the vet are dating. It's even impossible to blame Meredith for Derek's horrible mood because at this point all the poor girl is doing is try to move on, and Addison has actually ended up her friend.

Addie knows for sure that there is too much between Meredith and Derek for it to pass. Derek knows her coffee order and Meredith knows about his obsession with healthy serial. Addison finds rolled up blue prints for a house on his land and even though they're rough Addison knows that that house was never for her. Meredith completes his movements in surgery and knows how he thinks. They both love Ferry Boats.

Meredith Grey knows this version of Derek Shepherd. Addison almost knew a ghost of a former version of him. It's time to let it go.

The final push comes from a pair of black panties she finds in Derek's pocket the night after the Prom.

She's gathered the symptoms. She's made a diagnosis. Now it's time to make the decision she probably should have made when Derek left New York and her for Seattle and Meredith Grey. Cut away the damaged portion.

Right now the portion is all of it.

Maybe it's about time to go in to Private Practice?

She gets a few tidbits of information on the two of them when he comes for cases, when Mark visits, and when Amy comes. She hears about a wedding on a post it note. She sees pictures of kids, and when she visits she sees the warm eyes and the glowing smiles.

Eventually, Addison realizes that Meredith and Derek have had a relationship for a full ten years. She gets a Christmas card forwarded on from Caroline Shepherd. Derek Shepherd and Meredith Grey are not without their problems. Sometime they argue, they're both stubborn and easily frustrated, but they love each other. The two of them are completely and utterly in love.

Nothing about that is Clinical.

**A/N: So how was it? I know it was a bit of a gap between this chapter and the last one but school occasionally makes things very difficult. School sucks a bit doesn't it? Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is barrowed with my fullest intentions being to return it later.**

The first time Mark Sloan meets Derek Shepherd he's on the ground bleeding. They're in the fifth grade and he's jumped off of a swing set for no particular reason that he remembers during recess just before dismissal. His hands and knees are scraped and dirty and a stinging feeling on his cheek makes him think he's got a cut there to.

When he sits up the first face he sees is a pale thin one topped with messy black hair and mostly taken up with big blue eyes. "Are you okay?" the boy asks. "I'm Derek."

Mark isn't sure what else to do so he says, "I'm Mark."

Derek holds out his hand and Mark takes it, scrambling to his feet. When he stands he finds he's a bit taller than Derek, but the other boy's hair almost makes up the gap. "Is your face okay?" he asks. "Should we find your mom?"

"She's not here," Mark says. "My parents both work a lot. I'm supposed to take the bus."

The worried blue eyes widen a bit. "My mom used to be a nurse," Derek offers. "Maybe she can patch you up. She's over there, wanna come?"

"Okay," Mark follows him over to a tall women with spiky light hair who greats Derek with a warm hug while Mark hangs back feeling unsure. It's a feeling he doesn't like but is all too familiar with. Normally he makes a joke or jumps off a swing set and moves on, but right now neither of those options seems like the right plan.

The women who must be Derek's mom looks over the top of his head at Mark with blue eyes that match Derek's. "Who's your friend son?" she asks Derek.

He grips her hand and leads her over to Mark. "This is Mark," Derek introduces. "He fell off the swings."

"Oh you poor dear," Mrs. Shepherd says, immediately reaching out and examining the palms of his hands with cold and gentle fingers. She grips his chin and turns his head to the side to look at the cut on his cheek. "Well none of these look deep," she concludes. "But you better make sure you get them cleaned and covered when you get home. Is your mother here?"

Mark shakes his head in her hand. "I'm s'posed to take the bus and wait for the cook to get there for dinner."

Mrs. Shepherd frowns. "If your parents aren't home then where are they?"

"Chicago," Mark answers. He's not exactly sure where that is, but he knows it's a city and he knows it's away. He doesn't know why it's a better place to be than Manhattan, but he knows he's not there. "They've been gone a while."

She sighs. "Well honestly this is just ridiculous." She grips Derek with one hand and Mark by the other, and sweeps them both out of the playground and towards the parking lot with a quick note for their teacher saying Mark won't be on the bus. She loads them both in to the back seat of her car and drives them back to the Shepherd's apartment.

The apartment is warm and bright and messy and noisy and full of people. Derek's younger sisters run and play while his older ones bicker back and forth almost constantly. It's the complete opposite of his own home and Mark loves it immediately.

Mrs. Shepherd cleans and covers his scrapes and places bowls of spicy chili with cheese and warm bread in front of he and Derek while they sit at the kitchen counter with glasses of milk. Mark is happy there. Eating and talking and getting teased by Derek's sisters.

When night time comes, Mark thinks he'll have to leave only for Derek to look at him like he's being stupid and drag him up to his room. He sleeps on the floor in Derek's room on a pile of cushions under a heap of blankets. Mrs. Shepherd gives him a kiss on the forehead exactly like the one she gives Derek and asks him in a serious voice if he's brushed his teeth.

Some how it's as simple as that. He's now been adopted in to Clan Shepherd. He helps and receives help with homework. He sleeps there when home feels too empty and he doesn't want to eat cold food again. Mark helps Derek make more friends, and Derek helps Mark actually pass his classes. He gets to ask Derek's older sisters for girl advice if he needs it and Derek's younger sisters have extra protection and extra supervision when need be.

Derek and Mark are in biology in tenth grade and lab partners when they start doing dissections. Together they have to work through a sheep brain and a cow eye. Mark and Derek exchange a look and then shoot glances at the formaldehyde soaked bits of dead animal. Mark reaches in to his pocket and pulls out a quarter. "Heads you take brain and I take eyes. Tales I take lamb and you get Bessie."

It comes up heads so they both shrug, put on gloves and goggles, grab scalpels and get to work. The eye is a little bit strange in texture but once you get over that the dissection is easy. You dig in, and suddenly you can see all the working pieces. Derek is working quietly through the brain like it's perfectly normal and is filling out a diagram as he goes.

After a few more minutes of poking around, Derek elbows him lightly. "I think I found where the sheep eye would attach. There's even some of the optic nerve left."

Mark looks from the brain, to the diagram, to his own cow eye. There's a bit of stringy, thick nerve left at the back of the eyeball. "Do you think we could connect them?"

Derek grins. "I know I want to try it."

What comes from that is a two hour long, epic attempt involving lots of chemicals, some guts, cutting, and an attempt at something that looks a bit like braiding. At the end of it all, they have what even the biology and anatomy teachers have to agree would be a functioning connection between an eye and a brain. The teacher has no choice but to give them full marks.

When they leave the lab Derek says. "I think maybe we could do that for real." After that, it's just kind of their life plan. Medical school is just in the cards. It turns out they're good at it, and so is Addison after they get her to defrost, go out with Derek, and generally talk to them. They have a private practice and everything is perfect.

Then Mark sleeps with Addison.

Derek eventually finds out and leaves. He doesn't say where he's going and Mark realizes with a pang that he's lost the right to ask. Addison eventually leaves him to and Mark remembers what it felt like to be on the ground bleeding. He is once again alone, and this time he knows that it's his fault.

Mark gets a call to consult in Seattle where Addison and Derek both are and he takes it without a second thought.

The first thing he sees when he walks on to the surgical floor of Seattle Grace Hospital is a women in a white lab coat. She wears the light blue scrubs of a surgical intern and she's frowning at a clipboard. Blonde hair spills down her back and she looks like she's probably at least six inches shorter than him. Pretty, young, blonde. He figures why the hell not and approaches.

He reads the patient diagnosis over the intern's shoulder and whistles as he reaches the obvious conclusion. "That guy's pretty much a goner huh?"

The women turns, and Mark's eyes scans over petite features, and greenish-grey eyes. "Sensitivity," she comments dryly. Her tone seems like it's trying to be disapproving but there is a small smile playing around her mouth. "I like that in a stranger."

Mark grins and proceeds to flirts with her shamelessly. She calls him on it but the clipboard is now tucked under her arm and Mark feels like he's making headway. "Do you ever date coworkers?" he asks bluntly.

The smile on her face shrinks a bit and something in her eyes seems to shut down a bit. "I um- I make it a point not to."

Mark works with it anyway and brightens his smile by an additional thirty watts with an extra dose of charm. He has always been able to navigate his way through almost every awkward social situation. At least, on a short term basis. "Then I am so glad that I don't work here." He holds out a hand for her to shake and she takes it. Her hands are small with long, thin fingers.

Before she says her name their is a flash of black, white, and blue. A sharp pain bursts across his temple and he collapses to the ground. Dimly he can hear the women shout. "What the hell was that!"

"That was Mark."

Mark slowly sits up. At least now he knows he's found Derek. He's pretty sure she knows who the intern is too now. Intern Meredith Grey. Spawn of the famous Ellis Grey.

He makes his way to his feet in time to see Meredith forcibly spinning Derek and propelling him towards the stairs just as Chief Webber shouts. "Shepherd get the hell up here right now!" Derek looks like he doesn't want to but Meredith gives him a glare and shoves him that direction with tiny hands. Mark almost wants to laugh at the sight of his friend being thoroughly managed but can't quite do it.

Meredith is the one who cleans the gash on his face with a cotton swab and she is at least willing to have a conversation with him while she works. Her manner is dry and her responses are relatively short, but she does actually talk and she doesn't shy away from uncomfortable subjects. When he says his shrink has told him he's self-destructive to a pathological degree she mock smiles and says they have something in common.

"You know," Mark muses. "Derek walks in on me and his wife, literally in the throws, and he just turns around and walks away. But he sees me so much as talking to you, and I'm on the floor bleeding."

Maybe it's not the best basis for a friendship, but it worked out okay last time. Mark eventually moves to Seattle permanently. He works on getting Addie back and tries to balance it with getting Derek to talk to him. It's difficult work, but Mark thinks that the best way to do it is probably to get Addison to realize that she and Derek will never work.

Besides, he knows when Derek is happy and when he's miserable and right now he's dying on the inside. Meredith is toughing it out like an ultimate trooper and Derek looks like he's being scraped over a nail bed whenever the two of them are in a room together. When you think about it, all Mark really wants is for life to finally come down on the side of the dirty mistresses.

Meredith is still his favorite.

Without really realizing it, Mark adopts her. He looks out for her whenever he can. Granted that isn't very often but he chips in where possible. The best he can really do is make her laugh or encourage a drink and a none critical conversation. Sometimes though, that seems like enough.

He gives up on Addison and eventually she leaves. Derek is his brother again and Meredith makes him happier than anyone ever has. Mark's brother deserves happiness. He's starting to think that maybe he does to.

It's the perfect irony that that happiness seems to come from Meredith's little sister. He and Lexie aren't without problems in their relationship, but for almost the first time in his life Mark is willing to work through them. He is willing to try. Suddenly, Mark is doing dinner with Daddy Grey, renting an apartment and keeping a drawer empty for Lexie's things.

The drawer is soon filled and the delirious happiness he feels at the sight of her toothbrush next to his on the bathroom sink is just ridiculous. The simple evidence that she is a permanent fixture in his life makes him feel something he's not quite ready to identify. Sometime Mark wonders if this is how Derek feels with Meredith, and a simple look at the sappy expression on his face tells him the answer.

Meredith has a way of taking care of Derek and advising him in a way that gets his friend to actually take care of himself. The two of them take care of each other, and if Mark wants to think about it it's clear that they both take care of him to. What Meredith and Derek feel between the two of them is a sort of obvious and undeniable warmth. It's an energy that encompasses everything around them, and Mark does his best to foster a piece of it for himself.

Meredith is still his drinking buddy when he needs one and Derek isn't available. His favorite dirty mistress, even if she hasn't been one for a while. Now she's something else entirely. He's finally learned the real meaning of being the best man and the best friend the way he should have been the first time around. Always try to help the bride.

Remove all hint of innuendo from the statement first before acting on it.

Mark has built himself a family again. He knows that between all the interns, Lexie, Meredith, and Derek, he still has something he only gained the first day he met Derek.

Someone to pick him up off the ground when he's lying there bleeding.

**A/N: How did I do? I can always go back and change if improvements are needed but I suck at self-editing so you guys have to tell me! Review for me! xoxoxooxoxooxoxxoxoxoxoxoxxoooxoxxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxox**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Nope. I own nothing. I am not responsible for nearly a full eleven years of emotional trauma that you, like me, may have suffered at the hands of the writers and producers of Grey's Anatomy.**

Carolyn Shepherd has always been a tough women. She went through school even though almost no one actually thought she would do it. She survived twenty-five years as a Navy Nurse and the death of her husband. Plus, between her five children and Mark Sloan, she had raised four girls and two sons.

All of them were doctors.

Literally.

Every. Single. One of them.

Kathleen the shrink. Nancy the obstetrician. Liz the cardiologist. Amy and Derek the two neurosurgeons, and Mark the plastic surgeon. Carolyn tries not to think about the fact that three out of six of her biological and surrogate children are actually really incredibly good at cutting in to people's heads and faces.

At least Nancy had something to talk about with Addison when Derek started dating her. She wasn't ever quite sure that Addie was right for Derek, but she made him happy. At least, in the beginning she certainly seemed to.

Carolyn knew it wasn't completely warranted, but she worried about Derek slightly more than she worried about the others. He was the middle of the group and the only boy. Two girls on either side of him. The poor boy had to endure constant teasing from the older girls, and constant worrying over the younger two.

If Mark hadn't shown up the worrying would have doubtless been worse. He gave Derek someone else to talk with and brought a welcome edge of humor to the entire household. Thank God for chance playground accidents. Of course, there was the whole fallow up Addie debacle. But the fact that the two of them had really only had one major fight in about twenty-five years meant she wasn't shocked when the two of them got over it.

What she heard about Meredith Grey came almost entirely through the grapevine. The first few times all she gets are almost accidental slip ups of the girl's name. The very first time is a single sentence just when they're about to hang up.

"Yeah I'll call you tomorrow Mom," he said, a bit distractedly. "It might be a little closer to ten though because I have a craniotomy at seven thirty and Mere is scrubbing in on an appendectomy at eight and then there's dinner."

He had expressed his filial affection and hung up before she could wonder too much about who 'Mere' might be. She dismissed the thought fairly quickly and just tried to categorize it as her son making friends in a new city. She went to make dinner for one of her fourteen grandchildren and went about her day the next morning. The call came that night and Derek was clearly tired and the conversation was short. 'Mere' was not mentioned.

The next time she heard anything about the girl was nearly two weeks later. It's another short sentence and this time it's a full name. "Hey, do you think you could tell me what kind of tea you made when one of us was sick? Meredith's got a cold and she hasn't been sleeping well."

"Who is Meredith and how do you know how's she's been sleeping?" Carolyn asked. It was a mother's prerogative.

"Ma..." Derek groaned.

"I will tell you the brand of the tea if you tell me who she is." Bartering, extortion, it was all the same really.

A sigh came over the line as a rush of static. "She is a woman from work who I have been... seeing." No other details were forth coming so Carolyn decided it might be better to move on. She gave her son the name of the tea and filled him in on what was going on at home.

He was about to hang up, but Carolyn still had to ask. "Derek Sweetheart, does she make you happy?"

Her question was followed by silence and if she had had a worse relationship with her son she might have though he had hung up on her. "Yeah," he replied. "Stupidly, unbelievably happy."

She slowly learns more about Meredith. The first name is followed up with the last name Grey. The knowledge that her mother is a famous surgeon comes later and from the sound of it Meredith is following in her footsteps. The knowledge that she was an intern came later but Carolyn was a full ten years younger than her husband. Age is just a number.

She didn't get to meet the girl in person until yearly five years after Derek first dropped her first name over the telephone line. She hadn't really needed to visit Seattle on the way to her cruise, but she hadn't heard anything from Derek or Mark in a while and she worried about her boys. Besides, after five years she thought she probably deserved to meet this girl.

Carolyn wasn't sure what to expect, but she found her son relatively happy and healthy. She also found a pretty, petite girl, wearing light blue scrubs, a white lab coat, a bizarrely high ponytail and a slightly strained smile. The girl was obviously a little anxious to meet her, but Carolyn could mostly understand that. After all, there wasn't really a good way to walk up to someone and say "Hi, I'm the intern who your son started dating while he hadn't divorced his wife yet."

As it went, Carolyn spent most of the day poking around the hospital and meeting Derek's friends. She also got to meet Meredith's younger sister. A girl named Lexi who was dating Mark. The girl was young but Mark had officially stopped gaining mental maturity at age fifteen, and the girl was incredibly sweet. Lexi had called her Ma'am and felt guilty over a tiny speeding ticket.

She also felt like she had done some good with Owen Hunt after recommending some sleeping remedies. The veteran had a case of PTSD if anyone ever had. He was a good typical military man. From Derek's information, Meredith's best friend Cristina was sort of his girlfriend. Apparently the story was complicated. Every story at that hospital was complicated.

When she went to say goodbye to Meredith she found a different girl from the one she had met that morning. The long dirty blonde hair hung in loose curls around her face and shoulders. The lab coat was gone and a clipboard was gripped loosely in her hands. Her eyes were tired. Meredith looked like she had settles in to a natural state but the poor girl also looked exhausted.

"You seem like a nice person," Meredith said. "And you seem like you want to like me. So you should know..."

Carolyn sat back and let the girl talk. She sensed that this was the most honest conversation she would have with the girl. "The smiling," Meredith continued, gesturing broadly at her head. "With the bubbly, and the hair, and the pink. It's not me. It's fake. I'm a faker." She said the words like she was simply admitting a hard truth and nothing more. "I'm not bright and shiny. I'm dark and cloudy. Because I'm the kind of crazy person who... feels bad for serial killers."

After a moment of silence Caroln simply said. "It was very nice to meet you Meredith." Because then she actually had.

Before she left, she gave Derek the engagement ring her husband had wanted him to have. "For the right girl" he had said. Meredith grey was right for her son.

"I know enough. I know that it's easier to feel compassion for a good person than a serial killer," she had told Derek. That was incredibly important.

Because Derek saw absolute right and absolute wrong. Black was very very black, white was very very white. Absolute good and absolute bad existed for him.

But not to Meredith Grey. For that girl the world was a million different shades of grey. Black and white both existed but charcoal existed in between. She brought a sense of variety and change to Derek's life. She even felt that Mark was in good hands with her sister. The two sisters balanced out each other and each of them perfectly countered Mark and Derek.

Her boys were doing perfectly well with a few additional shades of Grey.

**A/N: How did I do? I'm looking for opinions here. I'm sorry it's been a while since I posted something. I thought it would be a good play on Lexie and Meredith's name since Carolyn practically makes the metaphor for everyone in the episode she first visits in. Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


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